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Rice Cereal: Not the Ideal First Food After All

Starting baby on rice cereal: You did it, your mom did it, your grandma probably did it, and now we learn we've been wrong all along.

So says Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children Hospital, author of Feeding Baby Green, and a go-to source for us at Parenting. According to Greene the only reason we fed our babies rice cereal in the first place is because rice companies told us to (literally—“You can't feed children as well as we can" was the marketing campaign). In fact, brown rice cereals or homemade brown rice mash or veggies are much more nutritious.

Greene points out that starting your baby on rice cereal can give him a lifelong taste for starches and sweets. With the alarming childhood obesity rates, many new moms want to get their babies off to the best start in healthy eating. Brown rice is a more nutritious choice.

Starting baby on rice cereal: You did it, your mom did it, your grandma probably did it, and now we learn we've been wrong all along.

So says Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children Hospital, author of Feeding Baby Green, and a go-to source for us at Parenting. According to Greene the only reason we fed our babies rice cereal in the first place is because rice companies told us to (literally—“You can't feed children as well as we can" was the marketing campaign). In fact, brown rice cereals or homemade brown rice mash or veggies are much more nutritious.

Greene points out that starting your baby on rice cereal can give him a lifelong taste for starches and sweets. With the alarming childhood obesity rates, many new moms want to get their babies off to the best start in healthy eating. Brown rice is a more nutritious choice.

If you're not into the idea of mashing your own veggies and rice, you can buy store-bought brown rice alternative—most cereal manufacturers offer them.